Braga 2-0 Arsenal: Braga press, then win it late

November 24, 2010

The starting line-ups

A classic Arsenal defeat – dominance of possession followed by slack defending.

Braga played a shape that was 4-2-3-1 when they attacked and 4-1-4-1 when they were defending, with Vandinho playing the holding role in front of the defence. They were unchanged from their weekend defeat to Vitoria de Guimaraes.

Arsenal also went with 4-2-3-1. Cesc Fabregas was risked despite an injury concern, Nicklas Bendtner played upfront alone, whilst Kieran Gibbs and Emmanuel Eboue played at full-back, with Johan Djourou returning to the back four.

Braga sat back early on – despite being the home side they seemed happy enough to concede dominance in terms of possession and territory to Arsenal.

Pressing

What Braga did do well, however, was pressing in midfield. Their plan was to let Arsenal’s centre-backs have time on the ball, and instead to get nine men back between Arsenal’s midfielders and the Braga goalkeeper, with the midfield three all harrying the man in possession.

The key to this was good communication and understanding between the midfield trio, because they often followed their individual players and found themselves drawn out of shape. Vandinho was supposed to be the deepest midfielder, but sometimes tracked Fabregas into deep positions, which meant that Leandro Salino would then drop in, and track the forward runs of Jack Wilshere.

It was notable that Denilson dropped between the centre-backs a couple of times to receive the ball from Lukasz Fabianski, since he was having to move this deep to pick up the ball without any pressure. Another factor was Braga’s ill-discipline – their heavy pressing (perhaps combined with an approach to get physical with Arsenal) was luring them into conceding free-kicks and picking up cheap bookings.

The one area Arsenal were doing well in was their left – Tomas Rosicky was moving inside and Gibbs was pushing back Alan into defensive positions.

Bendtner drifts across pitch

Arsenal's shooting was poor

Bendtner was playing the lone striking role for Arsenal, a difficult job considering Arsenal were finding it so difficult to create anything in the midfield zone. Probably as a result of this, Bendtner spent much of his time drifting into deep and wide positions in order to receive the ball and help build up possession.

In theory there is nothing wrong with this, but Arsenal’s problem was that they had no-one looking to exploit the space created by Bendtner’s movement – Fabregas spent much of the game in relatively deep midfield positions rather than playing high up the pitch – and so Arsenal were simply playing in front of Braga. A couple of times Theo Walcott put in decent crosses, but Bendtner was on his heels on the edge of the box.

Bendtner’s reluctance to stay in goalscoring positions contributed to Arsenal’s awful shooting Chalkboard – not once did they test Felipe from open play – the only time he had to make a save was from a tame Fabregas free-kick in the first half.

One caveat – Arsenal should have had the opportunity to take the lead when substitute Carlos Vela was hacked down in the second half inside the penalty area by Alberto Rodriguez, but the referee chose to book Vela for diving.

Arsenal concede soft goals

Braga threatened very little until late on, when they scored two very simple goals that yet again raise questions about Arsenal’s defending.

Both were scored by Matheus after simple, straight balls down the centre of the pitch. Granted, Arsenal were down to ten men after Emmanuel Eboue’s injury, but for both goals they were more than well-stocked in defence. For the first goal, Matheus managed to meet a ball over the top in acres of space despite the presence of three Arsenal defenders, for the second he had to run with the ball by himself from the halfway line but again, there were three Arsenal defenders who failed to stop him.

Conclusion

Arsenal played poorly but Braga deserve credit. Their gameplan worked brilliantly – to press in midfield, sit back and then hit Arsenal on counter-attack late on. It was a common strategy of theirs last season, when they were masters of the late 1-0 win, and the tactics were perfect here against an Arsenal side who barely tested their goalkeeper, and who were vulnerable to direct attacks when high up the pitch late on.

11 Responses to “ Braga 2-0 Arsenal: Braga press, then win it late ”

Pete on November 24, 2010 at 1:19 pm

I thought Arsenal’s midfield wasn’t in balance for yesterday’s game. I would’ve preferred the midfield triangle to be turned upside down with Wilshere and Fabregas both taking advanced positions more often. Now with Denilson dropping deep, both Wilshere and Fabregas often following the pattern and Bendtner drifting all over the place it was all to easy for Braga’s three central midfielders to defend.

Frustrating performance over all with very little off-the-ball movement.

J— on November 24, 2010 at 4:29 pm

Thanks for the write-up, especially the discussion of the Braga midfielders’ defensive play. An enjoyable game, at least for me.

Ronan on November 24, 2010 at 5:15 pm

It seems that the main problem Arsenal consistently have is Wenger’s persistence with a ‘fluid’ midfield three, as opposed to one or two dedicated defensive midfielders. It makes little sense to use your personnel so poorly as to have – for example – Fabregas in the ‘holding role’, while Song makes a foray up the pitch.

It’s tactically fraught as it depends on excellent communication between your midfielders and can result in a mismatch in a counter attacking situation. Any particular reason why Wenger does this?

RA on November 24, 2010 at 6:28 pm

I think it’s because its harder for the opposition to track midfielders if they are constantly changing position. For instance managers may spend hours working out how to neutralise Fabregas, but will be totally unprepared to see Song surging into the box. Look at the ZM articles about Inter last year and you will see that Inter only really had trouble defending when they faced an unexpected threat (Pique for example).
Thats my theory anyway, not that I know anything about tactics

Bag on November 25, 2010 at 2:36 am

You compromise on your defensive shape against a counter-attack, to attempt to disrupt the opposition’s defensive shape while on attack. Maybe it seems that its not too good to have Fabregas dropping deep to hold while Song is rushing the box, but for the other team it might be resulting also in their DM tracking all the way up out of position, and having their AM dropping deep into the front of their defense. If your AM can defend better than their DM can counter-attack, and your DM can attack better than their AM can cover and defend, you are still at an advantage. And, as RA said above, its also about unexpected attacking movement from deep which can are confusing and difficult to track, and can cause an overload quickly in a dangerous area, and overwhelm the defense.

Todd on November 24, 2010 at 6:48 pm

“Another factor was Braga’s ill-discipline – their heavy pressing (perhaps combined with an approach to get physical with Arsenal) was luring them into conceding free-kicks and picking up cheap bookings.”

This could easily be re-written as: Another factor was Braga’s use of rotational fouling and diving to disrupt the flow of play, encouraged by a referee who saw nothing wrong with their fouls and fell for thier dives.

While the loss was a classic Arsenal loss, it doesn’t feel like a loss due to tactics as much as a loss due to lack of professionalism from the players. Regardless of the one-sided nature of the ref, they should have been able to close out the game instead of losing focus at the end and giving away the two easy goals.

Waleed on November 24, 2010 at 7:41 pm

I think it’s difficult to do a tactical analysis of this game because the referee was absolutely atrocious and prevented Arsenal from playing at all. Not just the penalty but he consistently bought into Braga’s diving and play-acting, and allowed them to be too rough physically. The awful tackle that injured Emmanuel Eboue didn’t even merit a card.

M on November 25, 2010 at 9:33 am

Isn’t there a thin line between pressing hard and preventing Arsenal from playing at all? This is a team that i believe is second from bottom in the fair play league in Premiership, they should be able to deal with it and gain a little more than 1 shot actually on target vs a team they beat 6-0 not so long ago. It suggests the opposition manager actually watched recent games and worked out the weaknesses, while Wenger just stubbornly plays the same tactics throughout the game yet again.

Steven Smith on November 25, 2010 at 10:56 am

Arsenal are actually 11th in the FP league. They would be higher but their red and yellow cards have dropped them significantly down the pack.

The problem with Wenger is that he’s become too predictable. As an example, let’s use Barcelona (a club that Arsenal aspire to play like). Barcelona play a very quick tempo, high possession, short passing style of play. Their front 3 are interchangeable, their midfielders can all spot a pass and have great positional sense whilst the danger of both full backs (in shooting, tackling and crossing terms) makes them a threat from multiple angles. When they’re losing, Pique (with his fantastic technique) joins the attack and essentially makes a 3-3-4. So Barca have several ways of penetrating a defence. They also have Busquets who is a fantastic DM with great positional sense and sits in a back 3 when the team is attacking, which is partly why teams struggle to counter them as he reads the situation so well.

Arsenal simply don’t have this many options. The full backs are poor at crossing and aren’t particularly great defenders, the midfield is often mechanical and the strikers can’t interchange. Song consistently runs forward (and is lauded by the media for doing this) which exposes his two CBs and often results in Wilshere or Fabregas (two technically better players) sitting deeper to accommodate him.

All teams have to do is sit narrow, counter attack and take their chances. Arsenal have some very good technical players but closing the space almost immediately stops their 3 attackers; Chamakh, Bendtner and RVP. The former two are good in the air and holding the play up 30 yards from goal but simply can’t operate in tight angles and often lose the ball. RVP is technically better but lacks that explosive pace to turn defenders.

chump on November 26, 2010 at 10:31 pm

After reading your opening two sentences i have to request that you take off the red blinkers.

David on November 28, 2010 at 6:29 am

they’re doing badly in the fair play league because of 4 red cards: a second booking for handball, a second booking for persistent fouling, Wilshere’s bad tackle on Zigic, and a straight red for denying a goalscoring opportunity. that argument would work if Arsenal’s bookings were due to a rough style of play, but that simply isn’t true. they’ve made basically 2 bad tackles all season (Wilshere and Fabregas on Ward) and yet have 4 red cards to show for it.